Catching Up On Heartbreak
by greenleaf-in-bloom
Summary: After the King's Cross. Remus/Tonks. OotP Spoilers.


Catching Up On Heartbreak  
  
Rated PG-13 for general angstiness, maybe it ought to be PG. Has suicidal impulses.  
  
Remus/Tonks  
  
Remus Lupin, curled up in an empty room that smelled of a hippogriff, did not want to leave. He could stay here until he died, forever, just as long as he didn't have to be tortured by his senses again.  
  
Forever, he felt, would not be long.  
  
Not for the first time, he fingered the revolver at his side. The smell of his own pain at its silver casing was welcome. It clouded his senses more effectively than the last of the Firewhiskey had. It blocked out the smell of Padfoot.  
  
He gripped the silver, felt his fingers and palm burning, and loved it. He wanted more pain, less emotion. He shifted it to his other hand - I could be with Padfoot, I could be a part of it, I could be something else but the last Marauder.  
  
Downstairs, he heard the door open and dropped the gun, feeling guilt seep into him. Harry still needed someone; this was hard enough for him -  
  
For us. We're the last, the two of us. We're all that Sirius left here. Harry has to stay and I'll stay too. If I can do anything for him, it'll be worth it.  
  
For now.  
  
Footsteps. Earlier Phineas had been here, shouting for Sirius, and as he remembered telling him that Sirius couldn't come he remembered telling Harry exactly the same thing. Why did he have to keep telling people? He suddenly felt a heat grow in his eyes and knew that he was going to cry.  
  
Footsteps. And a tentative sort of call. "Is anyone here?"  
  
It was Tonks, and she opened the door quietly. Her eyes were red, she had unmistakably been crying as she walked through the house.  
  
"Hey," she said softly. Padfoot's distinct smell wafted in, and Remus stiffened. But she came in and closed the door as he clumsily tried to cover his welted hands and to hide the revolver.  
  
She came over to where he sat, on the floor against the wall, and slid down next to him.  
  
"You all right?" he managed to croak, remembering suddenly that she had been injured and that he hadn't asked at King's Cross earlier.  
  
"Yeah. No."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Have you heard from Dumbledore?"  
  
"No."  
  
There was a silence, and Remus looked at her. Tears were running down her cheeks again.  
  
"It hurts," she whispered. "Oh, God, Remus. It hurts bad." He nodded.  
  
"Do you want to talk?" She put a hand on his shoulder.  
  
His automatic response when touched would have been to flinch away. Despite the deeply colored bruises under his robes where Harry had fought to get to the archway, he controlled himself.  
  
He shifted, unsure, and the gun was suddenly in her full view from where he had hidden it in a fold of his robes.  
  
She stared at it for a moment, aghast, and then, voice breaking, half- gasped, "Silver?"  
  
He looked away, and heard her give a small shuddering sob.  
  
There was a silence. Then she reached out and lifted the gun, hurling it across the room. It hit the door with a crash and fell to the floor. Remus flinched at the noise.  
  
Crying now harder and more bitterly, she whispered, "Let me see your hands."  
  
He shook his head, back and forth, like a child denying its wrongdoing to a mother.  
  
"Remus, please," she pleaded, and he turned his head ever so slowly until he met her gaze with large eyes glassy from tears in the dim light. He still made no other move. "Let me see them."  
  
The tears started to spill, and Remus moved his hands where he had hidden them, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. Tonks gasped and took one of his hands gently, staring at it, then looking with pain and pity up at Remus. He had opened his eyes again and met hers dully, unwillingly.  
  
His hands were blistered and raw, swollen up and unrecognizable as his usually small, artistic ones. In some places, blood trickled through his fingers. She was careful not to touch it.  
  
"Oh, God," she said softly, wiping away tears from her face and holding back new ones. Drawing out her wand with trembling fingers, she managed to reduce the swelling and stop the bleeding quickly. Remus didn't move, and with a few more shaky words and a wave of her wand his hands were bandaged tight.  
  
"Thank you," he whispered numbly, and squeezed his eyes closed again.  
  
"I don't know if the blisters need special treatment. I've got to get you someplace where they can be healed properly." She had risen from her place against the wall.  
  
Remus didn't move. His head was bowed and Tonks distinctly heard a sob.  
  
"'M sorry," he gasped, and shaking her head she sank to her knees in front of him. His shoulders shook violently.  
  
After a moment, he went on. "I couldn't stop him, I couldn't help him, I just - I just couldn't. I was right there. And Harry - he has every right to blame me, but he doesn't. God, Padfoot was the closest thing to a parent Harry ever had, no matter what Molly said, and now. I'm going to make sure he's safe. It's the least I can do. But I don't - I've been so careful. I don't want to take Padfoot's place." He couldn't seem to bring himself to say Sirius' real name. "And it hurts. It's like James and Lily all over again, I've lost it, I just - it's like nothing matters."  
  
"Harry matters," said Tonks, and Remus nodded, taking another shuddering breath.  
  
"Harry and I - Sirius told me we were his life - everything he had - and now I feel like Harry's everything." He sighed, and wiped his face, taking a shaky breath. "I'm sorry about this."  
  
"It's fine," she whispered, and with a slight smile pushed Remus' hair out of his face. Remus froze, stiffening.  
  
He looked at her like a cornered animal, shivering, eyes still wide, unable to move his hands because of the bandages. Unable to speak because she was kissing him.  
  
He found as he returned the kiss hesitantly that somewhere, somewhere far away, he could feel the happiness of a black dog.  
  
The dog was everything and nothing, barking a laugh and smiling impossibly. The pain and the emptiness were filled by a feeling of joy. He could see a place where a dog and a stag walked together, where the moon was never to be feared, where a lion and a snake were best friends and moved through the forest as one.  
  
Remus Lupin found that he didn't need to be there. All that had to happen now was that he had to try to make this world as much like the somewhere as he could. He kissed Tonks again. 


End file.
